


don't hold on (but don't let go)

by falsemurmur



Category: Grey's Anatomy/Private Practice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-18
Updated: 2009-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:34:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsemurmur/pseuds/falsemurmur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Sometimes, changes billow around you, subtly settling into your life without your knowing.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	don't hold on (but don't let go)

**Author's Note:**

> Vague spoilers for Grey's Anatomy 5x24, but you don't have to be familiar with Private Practice for this.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
**Current music:**|   
[KT Tunstall](http://www.last.fm/music/KT+Tunstall) \- [Heal Over](http://www.last.fm/music/KT+Tunstall/_/Heal+Over) | Powered by [Last.fm](http://www.last.fm/)  
  
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**Entry tags:**|   
[pairing: addison/alex](http://community.livejournal.com/wings_for_craft/tag/pairing:+addison/alex), [tv: grey's anatomy](http://community.livejournal.com/wings_for_craft/tag/tv:+grey%27s+anatomy), [tv: private practice](http://community.livejournal.com/wings_for_craft/tag/tv:+private+practice), [type: oneshot](http://community.livejournal.com/wings_for_craft/tag/type:+oneshot)  
  
  
_**don't hold on (but don't let go)**_  
**title: **don't hold on (but don't let go)  
**fandom: **Grey's Anatomy/Private Practice  
**summary: **_Sometimes, changes billow around you, subtly settling into your life without your knowing._  
**characters/pairings:** Alex Karev, Addison Forbes Montgomery (eventual Alex/Addison)  
**genre(s):** Angst/Fluff/Romance  
**rating: **PG-13  
**note:** Vague spoilers for Grey's Anatomy 5x24, but you don't have to be familiar with Private Practice for this. Early birthday gift for [](http://gaspily.livejournal.com/profile)[**gaspily**](http://gaspily.livejournal.com/), who is totally to blame for the fluffy parts! Enjoy

~*~  
Sometimes, changes billow around you, subtly settling into your life without your knowing. But sometimes, changes come in blows; they come in punches, leaving you bruised, confused, and bullied. So all you want to do is scream, cry, never trust life again.

(And all in a second, everything is gone but love, and that’s the worst part. Everything is torn apart, but love drums against and with you, wrenching everything inside you further. How can something so alive be so gone?)

***

Everything was thrown in without a care. Some fresh jeans, plain t-shirts, socks, etc. A few water bottles and a snack or two. All thrown into a sports bag.

There was also this old sweater. White sweater. Coffee stain on one of the pockets - faint, but there. The left sleeve was the slightest bit tattered. It was okay, nearly, but never perfect. It was the only thing he took that wasn’t new and that did belong to some memory or another from what was _his and her_ life. And he stuffed it into the bag.

He slung it over a shoulder, tightened the strap, didn’t even take _one last look_ around the room, and left. He didn’t pertain to the life inside that room anymore, so he left.

**

He didn’t settle in the beginning (not even at the end).

He rented an apartment, lived with this guy who thankfully kept to himself. They only spoke briefly in the mornings when they ate their respective breakfasts (if they ate, that is). Then they would head to the hospital, separate cars even if they were working the same shifts.

He worked, not just diligently, but extremely well. Every extra shift laying around, he picked it up. It was all work and nothing more. The Chief of surgery knew Dr. Alex Karev’s background. Not just the routine facts that Karev had sent him to transfer, and not just the recommendations from the chief of surgery at Seattle Grace Hospital. He knew the background stuff that Dr. Karev’s prior chief had called to inform the new chief about.

How he had married a woman who was a doctor as well as a cancer patient. How not too long after the marriage took place, she passed on (along with another friend). How he continued to work there a week, until pulling the Chief aside to tell him that he was going to transfer. How no one fought the still relatively new resident on transferring. How the resident’s wife had been dead for no more than three weeks when said resident moved to Utah.

Alex Karev’s new chief knew this all, and hence, all the work Karev did, the amount of time he spent on the floor and avoiding people - it made sense. Some aspects of his newest hospital resident, however, were just not acceptable.

**

Every night, without failing, regardless if he managed to save a life or two or not, regardless if he needed to get up early the following morning or not, regardless if he could hardly hold his head up - every night he took a minute to place a small bottle of scotch in front of him and he stared.

Forgetting, indulging in the drunk oblivion was the simple solution, one he’d rather take to. Yet, it was like Izzie’s echo shook and prevented his hand from opening the bottle and downing it. So after a minute, he would always sigh, stuff it back into his pocket, and he kept going. It wasn’t like he could go back anyway.

**

Of all his days, the only hours he didn’t feel the sting of Izzie’s death was when he was in the OR.

It would have been so easy to give up.

But even Meredith understood that it was better for him to transfer than to quit at Seattle Grace. It was better than him staying locked up in the room that was his and Iz’s. It was better than having him freeze in the middle of the hallways - better than having his head turn in the direction of what was once Izzie’s patient room.

The OR was his room. The one place she wanted him to pursue.

So he worked hard. Still, he had his constant: his terrible bedside manner. With every passing day, his bedside manner reverted to those early days when he was an intern and he said what he thought without cushioning his truths. He guessed that it was a casualty of being amongst people whose respect he wasn’t out to acquire.

**

For nine months he worked. In that time, he was reprimanded by the Chief _only_ four times, with the Chief telling him “you’re one of the best I’ve seen, but your attitude needs adjustment.”

By the third reprimand, the chief suggested therapy, but Alex Karev was never one for that sort of thing.

“One more time,” the Chief warned the fourth time, “one more time and you’re no longer a part of this hospital.”

Perhaps it was by some strange wonder that it was when the Chief fired that warning that Dr. Addison Forbes Montgomery arrived by helicopter, rushing into the obstetrics wing at the behest of the Chief, and was looking at the vital signs of a woman pregnant with four children, two of which are attached at the arms.

“Dr. Montgomery,” Alex called out to her, and she froze before standing upright and flashing him a smile.

“Dr. Karev…hi,” was all she could say at the moment. They were attending to a patient and she couldn’t very well ask him, right then and there, _“what are you doing here? Why?”_

For the moment, she said, “hi” and he acknowledged her with a nod, and said, “what do you need me to do?”

*

She didn’t miss the ring on his finger. On his left hand. A simple little band roped around his left ring finger.

It was even more prominent when she walked into a supplies closet to grab some gauze, just to find Alex Karev leaning against the far end of the wall, facing a cart.

When he saw her coming in, Alex grabbed his bottle from the cart he’d set it on, and stuffed it into his lab coat.

She stopped a few feet short of him, crossed her arms over her chest, and smiled tightly.

“Dr. Karev. Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” he scratched his head, but nodded.

She licked her lips and suppressed a sigh.

“How long have you been working at this hospital?”

“’Bout nine months,” he answered, hardly catching her inquisitive gaze.

Addison looked around the small space of the closet, uncrossed her arms, and walked back a few steps, but stopped.

“Why are you here, Alex--not that it’s any of my business, I just…I’m curious.”

Alex chewed the inside of his cheek, as his eyes traced the tiles of the floor.

“Had to get away,” he whispered, then looked up at her. “Izzie and George…you know, she…they…”

Addison’s eyes dilated a bit, and her throat dried. Yeah, she had heard.

“Yes. I apologize for bringing this up, Karev,” she said slowly, then offered him a smile, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She turned to face the door, and left.

He still didn’t get everyone’s need to apologize.

*

The day following her arrival, the patient gave birth to three girls and one boy. The two conjoined girls barely made it, but the other two were already out of the intensive unit.

Addison wanted to give the conjoined girls a day before separating them, especially since they were in intensive care.

“So, you looking into any particular specialty?” Addison asked as she jotted down some notes on the conjoined twins.

“Not yet,” he answered, his eyes steady on the skin where the girl’s met.

“Well, whatever you choose, I have no doubt you’ll be pretty adept at it.”

“Uh, thanks,” he muttered.

They were silent for a few moments when Alex heard Addison shuffle the file to a nearby nurse, and after the nurse left, Addison stood beside him, her hand on the plastic encasing of the newborn girls.

“Alex, when I--yesterday, in the supply closet, I saw you putting away what looked like a flask.”

“I wasn’t drinking,” he immediately said.

“I didn’t…” she trailed off and sighed heavily. It wasn’t her place to chastise nor accuse him, but it was better for her to do it than another superior.

“I just--” she began, and at the same, he went, “I’ve had it for--”

Addison chuckled. “Go ahead,” she waved her hand.

“I’ve been carrying it around since before I got here. Never taken a drop. Izzie said she wanted me to have a brilliant career, and every time I feel like getting drunk off my ass…I remember that.”

“Hence the full bottle,” she murmured.

“Yeah,” he said in a low voice, and neither needed to say anything following that.

*

The surgery was successful. The conjoined twins were separated, the birth mother was ecstatic beyond belief, as was her husband.

That day, things started off well.

But then Alex Karev ignored an elderly dying patient’s request for his daughter not to be called in, and when the patient realized his daughter was in the hospital, he called in the Chief, complaining about the breach of patient confidentiality. This led to an upsetting bout of shouting that drew attention from several staff members and patients, and the daughter of the dying man.

The Chief ordered Alex to his office, and he would have been fired had Addison not intervened.

“I know I’m a guest here,” Addison told the chief, “but he’s an excellent doctor, and I know his bedside manner has great potential--he’s not a lost cause. Let me have a word with him.”

The Chief’s jaw tightened, and after a moment, he nodded, and said, “fine. But this isn’t over.”

The Chief stepped outside, sending Alex a glare on his way out, and Addison and Alex were left inside.

“You didn’t have to do that!” he yelled.

“You didn’t protest when I intervened!” she pointed out.

“And make it worse? Look, you didn’t owe me anything, but now I owe you!” Alex paced, back and forth, seething at her.

Addison leaned against the desk in the office, and she let out a heavy sigh.

“You want to pay me back? Fine. All you have to do is listen. Your wife died. Your friend, your fellow worker, your wife. She’s gone. It’s been nine months, and I don’t expect you to be over anything, least of all that, but taking it out on your patients? She told you to have a brilliant career, and to have that, you can’t make decisions for your patients. You can’t lash out at them, and you certainly cannot force your perspective on them.”

Alex paced a few more steps until stopping. He shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut, opened them, and shot a glance at Addison.

“It’s not that easy,” he said, words slightly muffled.

“It’s not impossible,” she expressed.

*

The next day, Addison stopped by their patient’s room one last time.

The patient and her husband thanked her and Alex, but her especially. Side by side, Addison and Alex welcomed their thank yous with smiles and left the room.

He walked half of the corridor with her in silence, but as she prepared to make her turn to the stairway that led to the roof where the helicopter would be taking her back to Los Angeles, he turned to her.

He cleared his throat, and took a deep breath.

“It was good working with you, Addison.”

“You too, Alex.”

“And thanks for talking to the Chief. I sorta need to keep my place here.”

She smirked. “I figured you did. No need to thank me.”

“But thanks anyway,” he reaffirmed.

“You’re welcome,” she replied, then looked down at her bag and dug through one of the pockets to pull out a card, “and if you ever need anything or just want to talk--nothing too close to the chest, of course--you can reach me on either of those numbers.”

Alex took the card from her hand, and his eyes traced the cell and work numbers of her business cards.

“Okay,” he nodded.

And she repeated after him - “okay.”

**

The business card was a cross between the scotch bottle and the cell phone bill he lagged on paying.

Sometimes, he found himself staring at the number. Other times, he forget its existence.

There was a two week period in which he completely forgot about it.

It was seven weeks after she handed him the card. He was in line for coffee near his poor excuse for an apartment when a woman in front of him started chatting him up about investment opportunities or something when she handed him a business card and he remembered Addison’s own card.

He shrugged the woman off and lost her business card quickly enough, but after getting his coffee, he sat down at a bench and rifled through his wallet, looking for Addison’s. But he couldn’t find it.

He trekked back to his apartment, finished his coffee as soon as he walked through the door, and went into his room.

He searched on the top shelf of his drawer, and when it wasn’t there, he looked through the few drawers, pushing aside clothes, but didn’t find it. He looked under his bed, under his pillows, under his sheets, but nothing.

He would find it behind the mirror of his locker the following morning, and he would laugh at himself before shoving her business card in his lab coat.

It wasn’t until the morning after that, when he realized that he went the prior day without once staring down that scotch bottle, that he pulled the business card out along with his cell phone and dialed the cell number.

Four rings--she answered after four rings, and he smiled to himself when she picked up.

“Dr. Montgomery,” she answered the phone call in a quick motion.

“Addison, it’s Alex. Alex Karev.”

“Alex.” He could hear the surprise in her voice, and he chuckled. “Alex, hi. How are you?”

“I’m good. You?”

He fiddled with her card in his hand as he spoke with her, before realizing how it seemed like a nervous tick, and he put it away in his wallet as their conversation went on.

The pleasantries passed, and there was an awkward silence for a good minute. It was in that moment that he decided to tell her what he couldn’t tell anyone else.

“I didn’t take out the bottle yesterday. Or today for that matter.”

“Oh,” and there was slight pause before she said, “congratulations, Alex.”

He could tell she meant it, and it had been awhile since he felt good about doing something so menial, maybe even normal. For a second there, he didn’t need to be in the OR, saving a life, to not feel the weight of being without Izzie.

“Let’s just see if I can keep it up,” he chuckled.

“You can and you will, Alex. Besides, you’re not an alcoholic. Still, if ever you need an intervention, I’ll be on the first plane out.”

“That a threat?”

“Take it as you will.”

Alex nodded to himself, a smile passing through his lips, when he caught sight of the clock.

“Hey, I’ve got to get to work soon.”

“I suppose I do as well. But this talk was…nice,” she said, her voice a little uneasy, but inklings of contentment threaded her tone, too.

“I’ll talk to you some other time,” he told her.

Unable to contain her laughter, she said, “that a threat?”

**

“Is Dr. Montgomery expecting you?”

“Yeah. Just talked to her this morning.”

“I just don’t see you in the books…” the guy said as he clicked his mouse and read over the computer screen, “what was your name again?”

“Alex Karev,” he repeated, sighing, “I’m a friend, not a patient.”

“A friend?”

Alex turned on his heel when he heard a woman question that. He turned to see a dark-skinned woman quirking an eyebrow at him.

“I never heard of you…” she said, inspecting him up and down.

Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw Addison approaching them both, and she went to stand beside the other woman.

“Nai,” Addison said in her warning tone and glare.

“What?” she shrugged, then turned her eyes back to Alex and extended her hand, “I’m Dr. Naomi Bennett. And you are…?”

“Dr. Alex Karev,” he shook her hand.

“Alex worked with me at Seattle Grace,” Addison explained.

Naomi clicked her tongue and grinned. In a not so discrete voice, she inquired, “he also the man you’ve been talking to on the phone these last few months?”

Alex tilted his head down to hide a smirk. Addison, however, twitched.

“We have had a few conversations here and there, yes.”

Alex looked back up to see the woman seemingly staring each other down until Addison rolled her eyes and looked to Alex.

“How was the trip, Alex?”

“It was fine.”

“Good,” she nodded with a tight smile, “why don’t we go to my office. We can discuss the patient there. It’s the second office down that hall. It’s marked with my name on the door.”

He nodded and walked in the direction she had pointed, as Addison hung back to jab Naomi.

“He’s my friend and a great doctor. Don’t make a big deal about this.”

Naomi innocently threw up her hands.

“Hey, you haven’t been out in a date in awhile and he’s cute, I just thought maybe…”

But Addison just rolled her eyes again and left her, not willing to discuss the topic further.

*

It was a simple case, and the fact that he had offered his help on a simple case was the first indication, but one she put aside.

It really was nothing more than him reaching for a friend. Even Alex Karev (especially Alex Karev, she knew that very well) needed a friend in life.

He was alone in Utah. He spent nine months dealing with the deaths of people who had been there in his intern days. Fellow interns, turned fellow residents. As a doctor, Addison understood the bond that formed out of that, and in the case of Alex and his friends, their bond was especially strong given all that transpired in their time together.

So Alex had his time apart, his space from the hospital in which those memories beat against the walls, his time free from the voices of friends who were echoes of friends no longer alive. He had his time apart, and perhaps he was not ready to return to that space, but he needed someone who he knew but who wasn’t too closely associated with Isobel Stevens.

They went over the case file, and it didn’t take long. She told him the patient would be arriving that afternoon, they would have a small discussion with her, and then get to the treatment. Technically, Alex only had to stay a couple of days and he could get back to Utah.

The night following the afternoon meeting with the woman, Alex went off to whatever hotel he was staying at, and they hardly had a chance to really speak, but Addison didn’t expect anything of the sort anyway. It was more than enough that he had dropped by Los Angeles to just be surrounded by someone familiar enough from his past.

But the following night, after treating the patient, he invited her out to dinner - as friends of course. It didn’t need to be said, but it was clearly implied.

It was a casual restaurant, a noisy one at that, and between the food and the loud conversations around them, any words barely transpired between them. It was only afterward, as he walked her to her house, in the dark silence, that they spoke.

“I really miss her,” were his first significant words that night. The most significant words he spoke to her since saying he didn’t look at that bottle anymore.

“I know,” she said. She pulled her sweater around her closer and shook her hair from her face. “You…look off sometimes. You clamp up when certain things topics come up.”

“Guess I don’t hide it as well as I thought,” he forced out a chuckle.

“You hide it incredibly well, Alex. I’m just incredibly more perceptive.”

He did get a real chuckle out of that.

“I hate Utah,” he said abruptly.

“Really?” she turned her head toward him and frowned.

“Everything’s so barren. Plus, the hospital staff is completely annoying.”

“You sure it’s not just you missing Seattle?”

Alex’s mouth parted, then closed. He bit his lip, then stopped in his steps. Addison stopped upon noticing that he was no longer next to her, and she walked back.

She looked up at him, waiting for him to speak.

“I like it here,” he finally said.

“What?” she laughed, thinking he was just pulling her chain.

“The beach isn’t exactly my thing, and I’m used to clouds or whatever, but…I don’t know. There’s just something here that doesn’t feel too bad. Feels better than Utah.”

“Alex, you’re supposed to go back to Seattle eventually. That sounds rude and assuming of me, but both you and I know that. You’re supposed to go back someday.”

“Did anyone ever tell you that?”

“Excuse me?”

“That you’re supposed to go back to Seattle? That yeah, you’re here in LA. For now. Doesn’t matter how long. How many years. In the end, you’ll still end up in Seattle.”

Addison took in a deep breath and her eyes flitted. “Mark told me…he said I’d go back eventually.”

“Do you believe that?”

Addison searched his eyes as Addison searched for the answer itself. She never could answer the question, not even to herself.

“I don’t know…,” she said, disconcerted at her own doubt.

“So?” he shrugged. “So we don’t know. But I say screw it. Mer said, before I left, that I’d be back, so it was fine, it was okay, that I had to leave. I’d be back anyway. I didn’t believe her then. I believed her when the months passed in Utah and I felt alone. I don’t believe her now.”

He stared down at her, and she felt like she was being challenged. But the moment strangely settled into her stomach and she felt at ease in the stare of his eyes. For that moment, her answer was clear - she didn’t believe Mark. For that moment, Alex’s phone calls and his visit and his _there’s something here that doesn’t feel too bad_, settled in the intersections of his irises with her.

It made her toes stand on point, her head tilt, and her lips touch his. His mouth moved against her lips, and her world was a whirl. He pressed his lips harder against her, and her tongue pressed through his lips, until he pulled away quickly.

“I’m sorry,” she said, not letting a second pass without an apology.

“Nah, it’s--” he looked away, looked far off. She knew. It was too soon. For him anyway. Time was crawling for him. His heart had not yet caught up to his brain. His wife’s life still ran through his veins.

Addison pushed her hair behind her ears and swallowed the lump in her throat.

“We’re almost there. At my house. I can walk the rest of the way,” she said.

He shook his head. “I said I’d walk you. I don’t take promises lightly.”

She smiled softly whilst looking at him. “Alright.”

They walked the last few minutes quietly. They walked at similar paces, waiting for the last steps to finally look at each other, to say goodbye.

Addison stared up at her house as they reached the steps, then over at Alex.

“Thank you,” she told him. She held out her hand. Alex studied her hand for several seconds before shaking it.

“You’re welcome,” he responded.

Addison walked up the steps, pulled out her keys, and opened the door. Half-stepping inside, she glanced at Alex one more time.

“I’ll see you again some other time.”

Alex grinned at her words. “That a threat?”

She raised an eyebrow and smirked. “Take it as you will.”

**

Eventually, he did make the move.

To Los Angeles, that is.

He never managed to settle in Utah, and the chief of the hospital found it extremely flaky of Alex Karev to transfer to yet another hospital.

St. Ambrose Hospital was better for him, though.

It wasn’t as vast as the last two hospitals he worked at, and the staff was smaller. Right off the bat, he was more integral to the hospital’s workings.

The new chief, however, was a lot harder to work with than his previous chiefs of surgery. He was just as difficult, though, something the chief came to learn (and Addison warned him about this Dr. Charlotte King, but he survived even without heeding the warning).

To be a little more specific, Alex finished his second year of residency before making the move to Los Angeles - four months after visiting Addison.

He didn’t see much of her the first month he transferred to St. Ambrose. He was settling in, and apparently she was extremely busy and had other matters to attend to.

The month passed, and then he was anxious. Of what or why or for what, he couldn’t pinpoint.

*

“You’re avoiding me,” he whispered into her ear, and the fact that it made her jump only amused him.

She slapped his shoulder when she saw his amused grin.

They stood at the coffee cart in the department of the practice established below Addison’s, staring each other down before Addison gave in and spoke.

“Karev, what are you--”

“Dr. King asked me to stop by for a case. You?”

“The coffee’s better here.”

The line moved and Addison moved with it. Alex kept up and didn’t move from her side.

“So, you been avoiding me?”

She rolled her eyes at his insinuation.

“I’ve been busy. Besides, we’ve worked with a couple of patients at the hospital, and I had lunch with you.”

“When I first got here we had lunch.”

“And I apologize for that, but the practice…Naomi’s left the practice, and we haven’t been able to find a doctor to replace her, much less a partner to help me…It’s just a lot of work.”

“Okay,” he nodded, believing her.

She smiled and moved up in line.

“When are you free?” he asked.

“Umm…Wednesday, two nights from now, I should be free. But only a couple of hours. From seven to nine, I believe. I have an early morning on Thursday.”

The person in front of Addison left and she was up to order her coffee. “Yeah, could I get a caramel macchiato, thank you.”

Alex waited for her to finish the order, and while she pulled out some cash, he said, “I’ll stop by at seven then.”

She nodded to him and handed the barista the cash.

“Sounds good,” she said nonchalantly.

She readjusted her purse, shot him a smile, and moved aside to make room for the person behind her to make their order.

She turned her head away from him when he said, “it’s a date” and walked away before she had a chance of digesting his words.

Addison’s mouth fell agape and she turned in a slow circle, but his back was already turned and he was walking into the elevator when she looked over at him.

“Alex!” she yelled out, but he didn’t turn, and the barista tapped her shoulder to hand her, her coffee. She grabbed her cup and hurriedly followed Alex, but the elevator doors were already closing, and all she got from Alex was a smug smile.

*

The doorbell rang, and Addison found herself looking into the mirror for the dozenth time that night. She ran a hand through her hair (again), pulled at her earrings, and smacked her lips.

The doorbell rung a second time, and she pulled herself away from the mirror. While walking to the door, she smoothed out her already wrinkle-free skirt, and breathed out.

She twisted the doorknob and readied her smile.

“Hey Addison,” he greeted her when the door opened and their faces met.

“Hey, Alex,” she nodded at him, then eyed the pizza boxes in his hand. “What…” she pointed at the boxes in his hand and he explained.

“I don’t know if you prefer cheese or pepperoni, so I got both. But if you don’t like either, we can order another one.”

Addison leaned against her door and smiled. “Either one is fine. I’m not picky.”

He raised an eyebrow at that.

“I’m not!” she reasserted.

He shrugged. “I didn’t say you were,” he replied innocently.

“Just come in,” she rolled her eyes.

She waited by the door for him to pass by the door, and closed it behind him.

He looked over his shoulder at her and asked, “where’s the kitchen?”

“Just keep walking straight. It’ll be on your left.”

Alex nodded and walked, Addison following a few steps behind him.

He reached the kitchen area and set the pizza boxes on the table, pulled out a chair for himself and sat. But Addison paused by the kitchen counter, leaned against it, and placed a hand on her hip while her other hand rested on the counter.

“Alex?”

“Hmm?” He looked up at her curiously.

“You said…it’s a date. You were just saying that, I’m sure. I just don’t want there to be any mixed signals and--”

“I said it’s a date, because that’s what it is. A date. I brought pizzas over, ‘cause I hate fancy restaurants and being around strangers on dates. But hey, if that’s your sort of thing, I’ll try giving it a shot--”

“Alex,” she sighed. She pushed herself off the counter and slowly walked over to the table, and next to her chair, she crossed her arms over her shoulder, and looked at him with a tentative glance.

“I don’t need fancy anything. This is perfectly fine for a date. You and I, however…we’ve been down that route.”

He scoffed and leaned back in his seat. “We never dated. We never tried. I‘m not pretending I didn‘t say some crap or that you didn‘t jump me, but--”

“I didn’t jump you,” she protested, but Alex ignored her.

“It doesn’t matter. It happened but whatever. We haven’t been down the dating rout.”

There was some logic in that, but she very well recalled those times he blew her off just as nonchalantly.

Alex studied the wrinkles forming in her forehead as she thought it over, he studied how her right hand balled in a fist at the frustration, and how her mouth kept parting just to close.

“My wife died over a year ago, and no, I can‘t forget it. I’ll never forget it. It’s Izzie. And it’s George, too. And I kept stalling myself from really thinking about it, but I stopped stalling. I bawled my fucking eyes out. I called Mer, I told her that I was fine, but I wasn’t coming back. That I was moving to LA. I gave her my phone number. When I got here, I unpacked my wife’s old sweater, I took off my wedding ring, and I put it in the pocket of that sweater, and then I folded that damn sweater and put it away in my bottom shelf. It’s there, but it’s not killing me to know it’s there. And now I’m trying to live this life and at the same time I’m trying to live with everything from my life before LA, before Utah, before Seattle. All of it. It’s hard, but it’s better than when I was trying to forget and get away from everything. I’m trying to give everything a chance, and that includes you.”

“Alex, I’m not…what am I, the simplest choice? I’m here, and you hardly know anyone else. You’re going to meet someone Alex. In the right time--”

“There is no right time,” he interrupted her, “and it’s not just because you’re around or whatever. I like you, alright? And I want to give us a shot, a real shot. So sit down and eat this pizza with me before it gets cold, will ya?”

Addison chuckled - it would be difficult to say no to that.

*

“I love you.”

He said it one day, when they were having lunch. The days and weeks had been running together, and all Addison had been feeling in that blur was some sort of happiness and contentment. It helped that he wasn’t molding her out to be anything else than just Addison, that doctor he had first met in Seattle Grace Hospital. He didn’t treat her like a victim or like he didn’t know her mistakes, either. It was a combination of him not treading too lightly or too hard, and it eased her. Knowing that he wasn’t making her out to be a certain something, and knowing that he wasn’t making himself out to be something else either, was the factor she’d been missing in her life. It’s how she could tell him without missing a beat - “And I love you.”

They finished their lunch, their words mingled here and there, their truth drawing its dots in the glance of their eyes.

*

“Move in with me.”

She said it one late night when Alex was bumping into her closet, searching for his jeans, because he had to get back to his apartment. He stomped bumbling around the second the words left her mouth, and she felt him sit next to where she lay in her bed, and he leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead, and he said in a muffled voice, “okay.”

*

He never settled, but he moved from a clustered apartment building near a busy LA street to a house next to the beach. A house which he often taunted for being so typically Californian, and Addison would often taunt him back, saying he only pretended to hate it since he never wanted to be the sort to live next to the beach in a comfy house, but secretly now that he was, he loved it.

(She understood his terrible manner but didn’t condone it, and somehow with her teaching him, he repositioned his bedside manner to be just mild once again. She recognized that he was rough around the edges and that he grumbled about the beach and all sunny days, but that it was the change he welcomed more inwardly than anything and that was the important part. She knew he never had to let Izzie go - and she preferred it that way - because Izzie Stevens had been a part of his humanity, along with every person who had righted and wronged him in life. Because as he had put it, you can have the worst crap in the world happen to you and you can get over it. All you gotta do it survive.)

*

The ring was on her work desk one afternoon that she shuffled in. She was busy reading some files and mumbling something under her breath. She hardly acknowledged Alex, who sat in the visitor chair of her desk.

She walked hurriedly through her office, pecked Alex on the cheek, and sat down at her chair.

She sat for a couple of minutes, rifling through the files, until she pulled out a paper and jotted some notes down. Finally she put everything aside, smiled, and said, “so, what are we doing to--”

Her eyes caught sight of straying gleam of silver from her something beside her clock. Her eyes shot to the object, and her mouth fail agape. Her fingers reached for the silver band topped with a diamond, her eyes dilated in shock.

“I thought maybe you’d want a bigger diamond or something, but I saw you looking at that one when we were in downtown LA last week. Plus, I know it’s not exactly romantic, but if we’re going to adopt, we have a better chance if we’re married. So, I mean, only if you want to, you wanna get married?”

Addison stared at the ring for several more seconds. But as Alex’s words processed in her head, a wide smile spread over her lips, and she looked at him.

“You sure you want to adopt? We’ve only just started discussing it, and I understand if you’re not ready for a kid.”

“Addison, I asked first.”

Addison bit her bottom lip and blinked, watery residue glittering on her eyelashes.

“Yes, I want to get married. With you. Yes,” she nodded.

“And I want a kid,” he said firmly, then mocked her, “with you.”

She couldn’t help stopping her eyes from completely watering then, and she left her chair, walked around her desk to Alex, and sat down in his lap.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, and rested her forehead on his. “Thank you,” she whispered, pressing a kiss on his cheek.

Alex reached for her left hand, brought it to his lap, took the ring in his hand, and took to placing it on her ring finger.

Their fingers remained in a messy embrace thereafter.

*

“This baby’s going to change your life forever,” Dr. Naomi Bennett said upon placing the little girl in Alex Karev’s arms.

Addison gripped Alex’s shoulder as she gazed down at the little newborn.

Both Addison and Alex looked up at Naomi at the same time, and said, “that a threat?” causing a fit of laughter between Addison and Alex.

Naomi furrowed her brows, not quite getting the joke or whatever it was.

But Alex looked over at Addison, flitted his eyes to their new baby girl, then back to Addison’s, whose eyes he caught in a lock.

“It’s a promise,” he told her.

She squeezed his hand, leaned down to kiss her baby on the nose, and moved to take baby girl Karev in her arms for the first time.

Alex watched his wife Addison carry there daughter with the utmost careful movements he’d ever seen her take, and he smiled at the sight of it all. He smiled, grateful to pertain to a life when three years ago, he had been so sure he would never be a part of something again.

Addison was just as grateful for the life he breathed back into her world.

And happy, too. They were happy.

***

And all in a second, change becomes your life preserver.


End file.
